Crystallographic, Morphological Analysis on Al Doped ZnO Nanoparticles

Abstract

Undoped and Al-doped ZnO (AZO) nanoparticles (NPs) have been successfully synthesized by the simple sol-gel method. The NPs have been characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). XRD patterns show that pure and AZO samples have a hexagonal wurtzite structure. X-ray peak broadening analysis was used to evaluate the crystallite sizes, lattice strain and Young’s modulus. The average crystallite size decreases with increase in Al concentration. Further appropriate physical parameters such as strain, stress, and energy density values were also calculated using Williamson-Hall (W-H) methods with different models. The surface morphology of the pellets samples was examined by (SEM) approve the nanostructure nature of the AZO powders. EDX confirms the presence of Al in the AZO nanoparticles.